How to: Delete your Social Media Accounts

This is probably not the type of blog post you would expect to find here – am I right? Well, even if you’re wanting to create as many social media accounts as possible to support your blog, knowing how to delete them, and how to delete them properly, is important too.

We’ve got some easy to follow instructions below for how to remove your social media accounts, should you ever need to.

Facebook Page

The following is for deletion/removing a Facebook Page. The quickest way to delete a page is to log in to Facebook as your page and access your settings. You can do this two ways: Firstly, by clicking on your name at the top of Facebook and selecting the page you want to delete. Secondly: On the left-hand side of your Facebook feed, you’ll see the heading for Pages, when you roll over it a button for “More” comes up, click on that then click the “Log In” button.

Now that you’re logged in, head to the page settings by clicking the Settings button under the page name at the top of the page, right hand side. At the bottom of the settings list there is the option “Remove page”, click Edit then click “Permanently delete …” It will then ask you if you’re sure to which you can click Cancel or Delete page.

Facebook Profile

The below is for deletion your personal Facebook profile, or account. Firsts things first, Facebook offers ‘deactivating’ as an alternative to deleting – just in case you’re not quite committed to deleting everything. Great choice, and maybe a great way to test the waters.

Deactivating your profile is as easy as going into your settings, clicking Security, and then clicking “Deactivate your account.”

Deleting your account is a wee bit harder. The most straight forward way to delete your account is by clicking the lock icon in the top-right corner, then the search icon, then typing “delete account.” Alternatively, try here.

Once you fill out the form saying you’re happy to delete your account, Facebook will process it for deletion. You’ve got 14 days after you submit your request to change your mind, or it’ll be gone for good.

Download your Facebook account
If you decide to get delete of your account, you might want to download your account information before you delete it. This feature -we think- is ingenious and a great thing to do. It includes all your photos and statues. IP addresses you’ve use and other information about your time using Facebook. Find out what’s included in the download here.

To download your account, go into Settings > General Account Settings > Download a copy of your Facebook data and then click “Start My Archive.” Due to the amount of data they’re collecting, it’ll take a bit of time before the download is ready. Facebook will send you an email with a link to download it.
Tip: If you download this information we recommend storing it somewhere secure.

Instagram

Just to make life easy, Instagram doesn’t let you delete your account through the app. Instead, you’ll have to log into your Instagram account via their website.

Once you’re logged in, and perhaps had a quick look around you’ll see that Instagram’s settings will only let you disable your account, not delete it. If you want to get rid of your account for good, you’ll have to go to “https://instagram.com/accounts/remove/request/permanent/”. Once you do that, confirm your password and click “Permanently delete my account” to banish it forever.

Twitter

Deleting your Twitter account is actually pretty painless. Once you’re logged in, go to your Account settings, then “Deactivate my account.” Re-enter your password, and once you do so your account will be deactivated. Twitter keeps data for 30 days before actually deleting anything, just in case you change your mind.

Download your Twitter archive
Like Facebook, Twitter offers away to download your archive, which includes all your tweets. To download your Twitter archive, click your profile icon, then click Settings, find and click the “Request your archive” button and you’re away. Like Facebook, this takes some time so Twitter will be in touch when it’s ready.
Tip: If you download this information we recommend storing it somewhere secure.

Other accounts

There are plenty of social media websites out there, and while we’ve covered the top ones here, you might be asking yourself – what about X or Y? Try their support pages first.

Here are a few direct links to support pages for other popular social media websites: Google+, and Pinterest.

Was this post helpful? Let us know in the comments!

If for some reason these instructions no longer work, please don’t hesitate to let us know so we can update them!